8 /10 1 Votes8
Cover artist 'Nichols' Publication date 1949 ISBN 0-85315-664-6 | 4/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print (book) Originally published 1949 Genre Historical drama OCLC 16529102 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Border Country, Presenting Saunders Lewis, Madog: The First White Am, Selected short stories, Land! Land!: And Other Sto | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All Things Betray Thee, by Gwyn Thomas, is a novel of early industrialism in South Wales. It was first published in 1949, and was republished in 1986, with an introduction by Raymond Williams.
Set in 1835, this work is significantly different from most of Gwyn Thomas's work. It is both a personal story and an account of the origin of the industrialised and mostly English-speaking society of the South Wales Valleys.
Plot summary
Set in the new town of Moonlea, a fictionalised version of Merthyr Tydfil, it is told from the viewpoint of a travelling harpist, Alan Hugh Leigh, who is looking for his friend, the singer John Simon Adams. But his friend has become a populist leader among the ironworkers, who are involved in a bitter industrial conflict.
Rachel Trezise describes it as "an emblematic account of the 1831 Merthyr Rising".